The Victual Brothers

The legend of Störtebeker | Episode 1

“God’s friend and all the world’s foe”, was the supposed motto of the so-called Victual Brothers. One of these brothers, Klaus Störtebeker, is now best known as a pirate, but who were Störtebeker and the Victual Brothers really? What is myth and legend and what has been historically proven? These questions are being addressed by Dr. Gregor Rohmann from Goethe University in Frankfurt as part of his research project. He is seeking answers in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, the European Hansemuseum, and in the Museum of Hamburg History, among other places. As he does so, it quickly becomes clear that to find answers, Gregor Rohmann must first and foremost look behind the countless myths that have circulated about the noble thieves and social rebels.

Audio stream of the video

Between 1389 and 1466 the term “Victual Brothers” arises in Low German sources for maritime combatants. Research carried out to date has generally been focused on the more or less stable formation of a group that was supposed to have stemmed from the troops recruited by the Dukes of Mecklenburg for their war against Denmark between 1389 and 1395. However, available sources do not fully support this interpretation. Hence, this project represents a fundamental reexamination of the “Victual Brothers” in light of the various levels of interpretation of the contemporary language in these sources. Thus, it is initially a new approach to an old mystery of late Medieval history in northern Europe. First and foremost, though, this example is used to facilitate a more in-depth insight into the change in the conditions relating to the violent settlement of conflicts against the emergence of the early modern differentiation between the right to spoils and piracy. Here, the historical-semantic approach opens up the possibility of avoiding assumptions previously made in research. At the same time, it promises a substantial contribution to research into perceptions of violence in the late Middle Ages.

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